Shoppers Use Mobile for Deals and Research But Rarely to Buy

Every year, we expect mobile to become an even more significant factor in holiday shopping but its use is still far from mainstream.

According to Marketlive’s 4th Annual “Mindset of a Multi-Channel Shopper” survey only 16% of shoppers plan to do all or most of their shopping with a mobile device. That is up 3% from last year, but given the flood of tablets and smartphones on the market, shouldn’t that number be higher?

There was a significant increase in the number of shoppers using mobile to research a purchase, 29% up from 12% in 2011.

And here’s the biggie, 43% said they were very or somewhat likely to use their mobile phones to redeem coupons in-store. That fits in with my own behavior, so I get it. Last holiday season, I used deal apps such as Entertainment.com and Shopkick and brand specific apps such as Old Navy to get the most for my money while shopping at brick and mortar stores. I bought a few things with my iPad, nothing through my iPhone and mostly through my computer. Which brings us to the good news:

Of the more than 1,000 shoppers surveyed, 33% said they will do ‘All’ or ‘Most’ of their shopping on the Internet this holiday season. That’s a significant jump from last year’s 25%.

Why are we doing more of our shopping online? Because it saves time, it’s easy to find what you’re looking for and the prices are often better than buying from a store.

More online shoppers were putting their trust in peer reviews (45% vs 34% last year) and 50% of shoppers said that being able to personalize gifts was important (versus 41% last year.)

Want to have a successful holiday season? All you need to do is help your customers find the perfect gift as quickly as possible for the best price – how simple is that?